Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., questioned the integrity of higher education amid attacks on free speech and an increasingly pervasive climate of anti-Semitism on campuses on Tuesday.
“The fact of the matter is that liberal arts education has been celebrated for a very long time,” Scott said in an interview with Red Alert Politics. “It is very unfortunate that on too many campuses we’re seeing visceral attacks that this really questions the integrity of some of the institutions.”
The senator was honored at the annual gala for the Endowment for Middle East Truth, a pro-Israel think tank and policy center, where he touted in his acceptance speech his support for Israel “not because I was elected to Congress, not because I’m Republican, not because I’m a conservative, but because I’m an evangelical Christian.”
During the speech, Scott said, “I’m reminded that while we have international struggles, we have international challenges, we have significant challenges on our college campuses in America today.”
“It’s one of the reasons I sponsored the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act,” he added. “Because we are to… celebrate the significant contributions of the Jewish people here in America, so that it becomes the springboard for us to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our best friend in the world, the State of Israel.”
If enacted, the legislation would require the Department of Education to adopt the State Department’s definition of anti-Semitism in determining whether certain incidents potentially violate anti-discrimination laws like Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
“My hope is that with legislation, like the one I’m sponsoring that has been supported in a bipartisan fashion, that we’ll see it being tamped down as we define what the discriminatory language really is,” Scott elaborated in his interview with Red Alert Politics.
Scott expressed confidence that, despite the packed legislative business ahead of the midterms which includes a must-pass spending bill by the end of September, the House of Representatives will soon vote on it, and claimed that the Senate already has enough votes to follow suit. While he did not answer the question of whether he would include the measure in the spending bill or try to have it pass as a stand-alone bill, he confirmed that he believes President Trump will sign it.
Scott also gave advice for right-wing college students, “Keep the faith.”
“We need college students to take responsibility and challenging ignorance from other students,” he added. “We can pass laws, but the most important step is a college campus taking responsibility for themselves.”
